Beppu City Guide, map and photos. boo.com members recommend hotels, restaurants and attractions in Beppu City

Much of Japan has a rather dreary sameness to it, with it\'s railway stations, concrete buildings, and shopping arcades, and Beppu is no exception. Beppu proper is not much of a resort destination. The surrounding areas, particularly up in the mountains, are where you want to go (probably...more Much of Japan has a rather dreary sameness to it, with it\'s railway stations, concrete buildings, and shopping arcades, and Beppu is no exception. Beppu proper is not much of a resort destination. The surrounding areas, particularly up in the mountains, are where you want to go (probably by bus). There you will find the fantastic onsen that make the region famous. Being on the coast, you might imagine that Beppu has a beachfront, but there are few beaches near the town, and what is there isn\'t on par with most of the other beaches in Japan. What does set Beppu apart, and no doubt accounts for it\'s popularity with businessmen, is it\'s impressive prostitution district. Per capita, it may well be the biggest pink area in Japan. Of course, it\'s not a place where Westerners of either sex are likely to fit in or feel too comfortable. Westerners looking for a that kind of good time with Japanese probably won\'t find it. One thing that I will say about Beppu is that it has a pretty good nightlife, with a number of bars and restaurants open well after midnight, and some until dawn. The people of Beppu are friendly but provincial. You won\'t find a whole lot of English in the smaller bars, but if you can actually carry on a conversation in Japanese, I believe the people there will be welcoming. I made some good friends during a short stay. One word of caution, however. A lot of the bars are \"snack\" bars, which means that you will pay a whole lot for a drink in exchange for the company of a hostess. And no, she\'s not a prostitute and no, you won\'t have sex with her. So unless you want to have that sort of drink, you will need to posess the ability to distinguish snacks from real bars. As a general rule, if you can\'t tell if it\'s a snack or not, in Beppu it probably is.close

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by TommyStone – posted on Nov 20, 2007

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